This invention relates to graft structures and particularly to fluoroscopically-visible flexible graft structures.
A patient's weakened or diseased body organ tubing can be replaced, repaired, or supplemented using artificial graft structures. For example, an aneurysm may be repaired by lining the patient's artery with an artificial graft structure to help contain the patient's blood within the weakened portion of the artery. Other procedures involve bypassing a section of diseased or blocked body organ tubing with artificial graft tubing.
Some artificial graft structures are flexible and distensible like natural body organ tubing. Such flexible graft structures may be formed from elastic polymer tubing or from a tube frame of a first highly elastic material (such as nitinol) covered with a second highly elastic material (such as silicone rubber). Flexible graft structures are a good replacement for a patient's natural body organ tubing. In addition, flexible graft structures are suitable for intraluminal installation, which is a relatively non-invasive technique by which grafts are introduced into the patient's body through the patient's existing body organ tubing. Such intraluminal installation techniques may be used, for example, to deliver and install grafts through a patient's vascular system as an alternative to open heart surgery. If desired, flexible graft structures can be made porous and may be provided with various coatings to improve bio-utility.
However, flexible graft structures are not inherently visible under fluoroscopic illumination. As a result, it may be difficult for a physician to view a flexible graft structure during an intraluminal insertion procedure or to determine the status of the graft structure during follow-up monitoring.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide fluoroscopically-visible flexible graft structures that allow the physician to view the graft structure during intraluminal installation and that allow the physician to monitor the status of the installed flexible graft structure during follow-up procedures.